Category: 2017

Matera is an ancient town in Southern Italy, quite a drive from Sicily so a few nights here to rest up. Rest up means, keep the kilometre count to under ten a day. 

The hills and steps never end here but we made our way around the town visiting underground houses, above ground churches, underground churches, museums and the like. An interesting town.

We had to get out of the way of a Ferrari driving down a narrow street, then another and another. Eventually over 100 of the sleek beasts drove by, parked  and were smudged by the likes of us. They are on a round trip in Puglia for the 70th anniversary of Ferrari. I think we’ll come across them again.

After managing to find a dodgy You Tube upload of the State of Origin; we had to watch it with the laptop turned sideways; we hits the streets happy in the evening for another circuit.

Just thought I’d add one more taken outside a supermarket near the apartment  –

Agrigento, Sicily

Two and a half thousand years ago, the Valley of the Temples was a Greek city, and the ruins drew us to Agrigento on the southern coast of Sicily.

Me writing about ruins is like talking about music, so I will allow the photographs to say a few words.

We drove to our accommodation in the old town. We reversed the car out of pedestrian lanes, my head out the window in the rain, leaking downpipes flattening the hat hair on my head, squeezed the car into cobbled passages, backed out of streets that led to stairways, nudged into doorways to allow dented Fiats right of way, performed twenty point turns in dead end streets, had a finger wagged at us which said,”Don’t go down there!” from a lady in a doorway. We did arrive a tad late, but unharmed with a new car still in pristine condition. Now that takes some effort!

That eventing, we watched the sun set over the Valley of the Temples below Agrigento.

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Piazza Armerina is not unlike many of the towns we have visited in Sicily.

Narrow streets lead us to numerous crumbling churches where men gather and talk, quickly, loudly and insistently. 

Google translate tell us that memorials we see tell of men murdered by the mafia.

Now that we recognise the words, we notice more of these plaques. A town called Corleone is just up the road.

I’ve gone to tracing our route via sewer covers. Don’t you think that is a novel idea?

On a holiday road trip, it is easy to forget where you are as the places can be a little similar and tend roll into one. Forgotten where you are? Just check out the manhole cover.

We are in Piazza Armerina, Sicily.